Lilian’s story

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Lilian lives with her five children in Mukuru, an informal settlement in Nairobi that faces water shortage due to lack of a water supply network. She was forced to pay illegal vendors extortionate prices for – often unsafe – drinking water. Lilian told us:

“The vendors near my house sell water at Kes 10, which is too expensive for me. I would be forced to walk for a long time to find a vendor selling water at Kes 5, and then carry the water back several times. It was very tiring and took up so much of my time.”

Our programme in Nairobi has introduced pre-paid water dispensers to improve access to good quality water and at an affordable price. They are accessible and around the clock, meaning that water can be accessed by everyone, at any time. Lilian now has a water point very close to her house and where she would have spent up to Kes 300 a week for her household, she now spends Kes 20 for a whole week’s supply of water. With her time now reduced on fetching water, she has more time for other productive activities.

“I don’t have to walk around looking for cheap water anymore. Even when I get back late from working my other jobs, I am still able to come home and fetch water at night.”

“I am saving a lot of money now – and I am able to get enough food to feed my family. When I am washing our clothes, I no longer have to rinse with dirty water and worry about running out of water.”

In 2017, with your help, we reached over 26,000 people in Kenya through our clean water programmes. We constructed 2km of additional pipeline, which was critical in bringing the water network closer to low-income families, like Lilian’s, to provide affordable connections to over 8,000 people. We also focused on building infrastructure that will deliver piped water to whole communities through water kiosks and taps.

The One Foundation‘s vision is a world in which everyone has access to clean, safe water, forever. You can read more about our work in Kenya on our project pages.